# Billing

Free clusters are free forever. You do not need a billing account to create a free cluster.

Shared Cloud clusters are charged for resource usage. The monthly charge is determined by your usage and your [support plan](https://weaviate.io/support-plans). You have to have a billing account to create a Shared Cloud cluster.

To estimate costs for different usage plans, see the [pricing page](https://weaviate.io/pricing).

:::callout{intent="note"}
If you have signed up for Weaviate Cloud through an external cloud provider like [AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-ng2dfhb4yjoic) or [GCP](https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/weaviate-gcp-mktplace/weaviate?inv=1\&invt=AbwjlA), the billing will be managed through that cloud provider's marketplace.
:::

## Create an account

Weaviate Cloud (WCD) uses [Stripe](https://stripe.com/) for billing. To create a Stripe account, follow these steps:

- Open the
  [Weaviate Cloud console](/go/console?utm_content=others).

- Open the organization dropdown menu (1).

- Click on `Organization settings` (
  2\).

![Edit an organization in Weaviate Cloud](/assets/docs/cloud/img/weaviate-cloud-organization-settings.png)

Edit an organization in Weaviate Cloud.

- Under the `Billing` section, click on the
  `Add payment method` button (3).

- Fill in the needed personal information.

- Create your Stripe account.

![Add payment method to Weaviate Cloud](/assets/docs/cloud/img/weaviate-cloud-billing-section.png)

Add payment method to Weaviate Cloud.

## Usage charges

For details on usage charges, see the [pricing page](https://weaviate.io/pricing).

## Support levels

Weaviate offers [multiple support plans at multiple levels](https://weaviate.io/support-plans) with specific support options. Refer to the page for further details.

## High availability

All paid plans include highly available (HA) clusters by default.

## Billing cycles

Charges are calculated and invoiced for active clusters on the 1st day of each month.

## Stop billing & service

To stop billing for your Weaviate Cloud account, delete all active cluster(s). Billing continues for each active cluster until deletion. Each cluster generates a final invoice with your latest usage charges upon deletion.

Once all cluster(s) are deleted and invoices are settled, your subscription will end.

## Support

If you use **Weaviate Cloud** (Database cluster(s) or Weaviate product in the cloud) or have a self-hosted support package, open a ticket in the [Support Portal](https://support.weaviate.io) or email [Weaviate support](mailto\:support@weaviate.io) directly. To add a [support plan](https://weaviate.io/support-plans), contact [Weaviate sales](https://weaviate.io/pricing#contact-sales).

Use the **Support Portal** for direct help from the Weaviate team: open and track tickets, and we'll respond in line with your support plan. The **Community Forum** is open to everyone, and a great place to ask questions, get help with your cluster, and connect with other developers. For all the ways to get help, see the [Support overview](../support/overview.md).

::::card-grid
:::card{title="Weaviate Support Portal" href="https://support.weaviate.io" icon="headset"}
Direct help from the Weaviate team for Weaviate Cloud. Open and track tickets in the **Support Portal**.
:::

:::card{title="Weaviate Community Forum" href="https://forum.weaviate.io/c/support" icon="messages-square"}
Ask questions, share ideas, and connect with other developers on our **Community forum**.
:::
::::

## Related pages

- [Agents](./agents-index.md)
- [AI-assisted Weaviate code generation](./ai-assisted-vibe-coding-index.md)
- [APIs](./apis-index.md)
- [Authorization and authentication](./authorization-and-authentication-index.md)
- [Benchmarks](./benchmarks-index.md)
- [Best practices](./best-practices-index.md)
- [Client libraries](./clients-index.md)
- [Client Libraries / SDKs](./client-libraries-index.md)
- [Cloud](./cloud-index.md)
- [Cloud account management](./cloud-account-management-index.md)

# Agent Instructions

This portal answers questions programmatically. To receive a synthesized,
source-cited answer instead of crawling page by page, append the `?ask=`
query parameter to any page URL on this site:

    /guides/quickstart?ask=how+do+I+authenticate

Optional parameters:

- `&goal=<what-you-are-trying-to-do>` steers the answer toward your
  objective (e.g. `&goal=write+a+python+client`).
- `&version=<label>` scopes the answer to a mounted version when the
  portal publishes more than one.

The response is `text/markdown`: the answer followed by a `# Sources` list
of the portal pages it was grounded in. Status codes are the contract:

- `200` — the answer; `402` — the portal owner’s plan or answer credits are
  exhausted (surface this to your operator; do NOT retry); `429` — you are
  rate-limited; back off for the `Retry-After` seconds; `503` — the answer
  lane is temporarily unavailable; fall back to crawling the `.md` pages.

For the full corpus map read `llms.txt` at the site root; for the tool
surface (search + page fetch as MCP tools) see `/mcp`.